became entirely shut off from the avenues of Greek culture, and was left
unaided in her struggle for national existence, the light of literature
again sank to a feeble gleam. There was, indeed, a faint revival in the
tenth century, and again a second and a stronger renaissance in the
twelfth under the impulse given by Nerses, and by his namesake, the
Patriarch. But this revival, like the former, was not general in
character. It was mostly a revival of religious mysticism in literature,
not of the national spirit, though to this epoch belong the choicest
hymnological productions of the Armenian Church.

There are no chronicles extant that can be called purely Armenian. The
oldest chronicles that we have of Armenia--and there are many--wander
off into the histories of other people--of the Byzantines, for instance,
and even of the Crusaders. The passages that deal with Armenia are
devoted almost entirely to narrating the sufferings of the Armenians
under the successive invasions of pagans and Mahometans, and the efforts
made to keep the early Christian faith--forming almost a national book
of martyrs, and setting forth a tragic romance of perpetual struggle.
These records cannot be called Armenian literature in a real sense, for
in many cases they were not written by Armenians, but they picture in
vivid fashion the trials suffered by Armenians at the hands of invading
nations, and the sacrifices made to preserve a national existence. They
picture, in pages bristling with horrible detail, the sacrifices and
sufferings of a desperate people, and in them we see Armenia as the
prophet saw Judea, "naked, lying by the wayside, trodden under foot by
all nations." These chronicles have an interest all their own, but they
lack literary beauty, and not being, in themselves, Armenian literature,
have not been included in the selections made as being purely
representative of the race and land.

The examples of Armenian proverbs and folk-lore included in this volume
show, as is usual, the ethnological relationship that is so easily
traced between the fables of _Aesop_, of Bidpai, of Vartan, and of
Loqman. It may be said with truth that in the folk-lore and fables of
all nations can be traced kinship of imagination, with a variety of
application that differs with the customs and climate of the people. But
the Armenian is especially rich in a variety of elements. We meet
enchantments, faculties, superstitions, and abstract ideas personif